Prepared/paranoid

General General Discussion
1

Where do you draw YOUR line?

Personally, I prepare for a limited SHTF situation based on my experiences living through several hurricanes and snow storms. I personally, do not prepare for the break down of society as we know it. As tenuous as the fabric of society seems it has withstood quite a bit over the course of history. So I, personally, don’t find it necessary.

That being said, I do have a couple of cases of MREs stored. I have the capacity to store a lot of water on short notice. I don’t have dozens of magazines loaded, but I do keep a Eagle patrol pouch packed for an extended looting situation. I will get a portable generator when I move from my current location (I’m lucky enough to live in a community with it’s own back up generator system.).

I’m not deriding anyone else’s choices. How people spend their money is their business, not mine. I am wondering where others draw their personal line between being prepared and being paranoid, just in case I missed something.:wink:

2

Prepared: Portable generator, keeping the propane tank(s) filled, some firewood stored away, few days of water and canned goods, belt or chest rig loaded and ready, plenty of batteries, keeping the cars fueled up.

Paranoid: 12-cyl CAT diesel generator 6 feet under ground, hundreds of gallons of fuel stored away, 3 months worth of MREs per person, owning chemical suits, having loaded Glocks stashed in every major appliance and piece of furniture in your house…

I wish I could afford to be paranoid…the payments on prepared are killing me already.

3

Guess I fall somewhere in between.
6 cycl John Deere Genset, 100 gal tank on it and my offroad tank for my tractor w/ about 250 in it. Power where I live stinks we lose it for at least a day per month, and that is with no real problems.
About a month’s worth of non perishables, cans taste better and I am not going wandering, so why buy MRE’s?
As much ammo as I can afford to buy.

I am not planning on THE END, but planning for the ice storms that cut power for two three weeks, for flood that kills power for that amount of time.

Oh and water, lots and lots of water

4

Right now I have a decent amount of ammo and I recently purchased a number of gas cans I can fill if I anticipate a crisis.

My goal is to increase my shopping trips incrementally until I have about a months supply of canned goods and non-perishables. More ammo, also incrementally purchased. My plan is to stay in place, but I have a load out set up for my Bronco and my Odyssey in case we have to take off and I have a couple of national parks I would move to till said crisis blows over.

One thing to consider in an EOTW situation is my wife’s medication. If you hear reports of a short, heavily armed man robbing pharmacies, that would be me :smiley: .

5

Prepared.

Living on the coast forces you to be prepared. When Hurricane Isabel hit we were without power for four days. Some in the area went nine days without power. We always have some MREs stashed away. Plenty of propane for the grill, MSR stove and fuel, ammo, water, canned goods, etc.

6

You guys bring up a good point about the propane. I have one for normal use and one that is my “war reserve.”

7

I would approach things from the standpoint of natural disasters and coping with them. Of course budgetary concerns will limit the level you reach. Spare propane tanks, gas grills and outdoor cookers are starters(turkey set up, cook lots of other things in it)

Always having spare food and supplies on hand should be a constant as well as the ability to move if the home is destroyed.

Firearms, have whatever you need or use daily available with a small resupply.

Anything above that firearms wise and you would have ample warning to prepare more in depth, provided you watch Fox news and not MTV.

8

What’s MTV?

9

–BET?

10

Propane grills are awesome when the power goes out. During Isabel all the neighbors would pull the grills out to the curb and cook breakfast, lunch & dinner! Now we always keep the propone filled up.

11

Paranoid is thinking that Zombies or Cuban Paratroopers are going to be your likely enemy:rolleyes:

12

Make sure that your tanks will work with your grille. I bought a nce gee whiz unit that has the QD style connector, now have 3 full tanks that I can’t use.

13

I dont line the walls of my house with Reynolds wrap. Other than that, I prefer to live in the thought of I’d rather have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. That is without being stupid with finances mind you. :smiley:

14

Forgot the 40 pigmy’s parachuting on the roof-------

15

Come’n man, don’t ruin my Zombie fantasy :mad:

:stuck_out_tongue:

16

I think there is some other site where you can indulge your Zombie fetish:D

Its the Usual Suspects Network,

What, you thought I was talking about TOS:eek:

LOL

17

Easy for you to say all the way up there in VA.

:smiley:

18

Paranoid is thinking that Zombies or Cuban Paratroopers are going to be your likely enemy

That would be an IMPROVEMENT in Kali…I would be on the side of the zombies here!!

Mace

19

I’ve posted this before, but there is a hierarchy of preparedness.

The guy that has a semi-trailer generator in his backyard and 18 barrels of rice in his basement, but is 200 lbs overweight, smokes and drinks like a fish, and doesn’t wear his seatbelt when driving is not prepared. Yes, on some internet forums he will be viewed as a god, but he is not prepared.

I tend to think of all possible causes of death as an “attack”, and take steps to minimize my likelihood of falling victim to said attack. Disease is the most likely thing to attack an American, and so I try to keep healthy, excercise, eat right, etc. to prepare for that attack. Anybody can get cancer, but the guy that’s maintained a healthy lifestyle is much better PREPARED to beat it.

Accidents are next, so I try to avoid situations that are inherently dangerous, wear my seatbelt while driving, etc. Yes, they are called “accidents” for a reason, and one can happen to anyone, but the person that was wearing his seatbelt and driving a car with airbags is much better PREPARED to survive it.

Preparing for things like muggings, natural disasters, riots, war/invasion, etc. are further down the list both in priority and in necessity. There are also things that you can do to “avoid” that will reduce the need to “prepare”. Avoiding high-crime areas, living in safer regions, avoiding large cities, etc. all go a long way towards avoiding potential attacks, and reduce the need to “prepare” greatly.

All of that said, it doesn’t mean that I don’t carry a gun every day, attend training classes, keep a case of MREs, bottled water, and propane at the house, etc. It just means that I choose to take care of the most likely threats first before I address the more outlandish.

Unfortunately most people don’t consider eating healthy, excercising, and wearing a seatbelt to be as “fun” or “cool” as the rest of the stuff.

Interestingly, people discuss mindset in terms of training and fighting, but it’s really a much broader issue that extends to all aspects of life and preparedness and survivability.

20

rob_s, you’re OK. I don’t care what they say.:wink:

You omitted one category of threat: our bipartisan ruling class. “We want your guns, peasants, so you can’t remove us from power”.

Moynihan from New York (what is with all the a$$hole$ from New York?) once proposed an additional excise tax on ammunition because the recently-passed AWB wasn’t enough. From the New York Times, November 4, 1993:

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said today that he would insist that President Clinton’s health-care plan include a huge increase in Federal taxes on handgun ammunition that would make some especially destructive bullets unaffordable. The New York Democrat has often contended that the best way to attack gun violence would be to restrict the sale of ammunition, not guns. Today, for instance, he noted that the nation has a 200-year supply of guns but only a 4-year supply of ammunition.

Cut off ammunition and the guns are worthless. With just-in-time production/distribution, even news of such proposed legislation today would strip the shelves in a day. So the question becomes, how much is enough?

WalMart raised ammo prices last week. Even the lowly Federal 550 round bulk packs of .22LR went up over 10%.

Got ammo?